We have briefly reviewed five explanations of when and why affect may influence judg- ments of outgroups. Clearly, several of these hypotheses draw from each other and several make similar predictions. Collectively, the five hypotheses address two distinct issues: allo- cation of attention and infusion of affect. The distraction and mood and general knowl- edge hypotheses focus on how affect may influence perceivers’ allocation of attention.
The affect consistency, affect as information, and affect infusion hypotheses deal with the extent of influence affect has on judgments once attention has been directed. As a gambit for research, we suggest the following synthesis: Affect influences intergroup judgments by both influencing the direction of attention and the valence of subsequent cognitions about the outgroup.
1. Allocation of attention. Two variables determine how affect shapes what persons attend to and use as grist for judgments of outgroups: valence of affect and strength of affect.
(a) Valence of affect. Negative affect commands greater vigilance than does positive affect. As discussed by Bless et al. (in press), this may be due to the greater threat inher- ent in negative affect (especially anxiety and fear). It may also reflect greater informational value of negative events (e.g., Jones & Davis, 1965). In a broader sense, it may reflect the function of conscious thought as a problem-solving mechanism for humans. We tune to negative affect because that is precisely what our active thought processes are designed to address. Pleasant affect, while sought out, lulls us to bliss and dulls our attentiveness.
In addition, Isen and her colleagues (Isen & Daubman, 1984; Isen, Niedenthal, &
Cantor, 1992) have shown that positive affect broadens cognitive categories so that non- typical exemplars are more readily included. Applied to the mood and bias literature, pos- itive affect may encourage perceivers to see the similarities in their environment and, therefore, underestimate the differences between target persons and the group to which they belong. Simply put, happy perceivers will overlook (or underweight) individuating information in favor of their expectations about the group category to which the target belongs.
(b) Strength of affect. Strong, “hot” emotion grabs more attention than cooler moods.
Although strength of affect has not been manipulated systematically in this research area, comparisons across studies support this argument. Studies involving anxiety and arousal (Baron et al., 1990; Wilder & Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b) have provided evidence that strong affect can distract subjects from careful attention to the behavior of outgroup members and increase reliance on stereotypic and biased beliefs. Outgroup members were judged to be more homogeneous and their behavior more consistent with stereotypes when subjects were under high arousal as a result of an anxiety manipulation. Moreover, distraction produced by anxiety was significantly related to bias. The more anxious and distracted subjects reported themselves to be, the more biased they were in their judgments of outgroup members.
Note that the Wilder and Shapiro experiments differed from others in the mood–bias literature in that affect was generated by the expectation of a forthcoming unpleasant or fearful interaction. Thus, when subjects attended to the stimulus persons they had no opportunity to compartmentalize or dissociate their anxiety from the task at hand because resolution of the anxiety was yet to come. On the other hand, in the typical studies in the Bodenhausen, Mackie, and Forgas research programs, mood induction was presented to subjects as part of a separate experiment that preceded exposure to outgroup members.
It seems to us that any distraction that may have been created by subjects having to focus on their emotions and cope with them would be minimized under this “two experiment”
paradigm. Consequently, we suspect that the emotions experienced in the Wilder and Shapiro procedures were more intense and likely to produce coping responses that dis- tracted subjects from careful attention to the target outgroup.
2. Infusion of affect. The affect consistency, affect as information, and affect infusion hypotheses posit that more mood congruent cognitions should be made salient with more in-depth cognitive processing. Literature on affect and bias has identified at least three variables that may influence processing strategies and, therefore, degree of affect infusion:
motivational demands, temporal demands, and target demands.
(a) Motivational demands. To the extent that perceivers are motivated to be accurate in their judgments, they will give greater weight to individuating information and less to general knowledge schemas such as stereotypes (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990; Kruglanski, 1989). In several studies, when happy persons were motivated to process stimulus infor- mation more carefully, they did not rely on stereotypes more than did neutral or sad per- ceivers (Bless et al., 1990; Bodenhausen et al., 1994). For instance, Queller, Mackie, and Stroessner (1994, cited in Mackie, Queller, Stroessner, & Hamilton, 1996) manipulated subjects’ mood states (neutral or happy) and had subjects read descriptions of members of a group of “Big Brothers.” Half of their subjects were asked to form a simple impres- sion of the group. These subjects showed the typical mood effect: happy subjects per- ceived the Big Brothers as more homogeneous than did neutral subjects. The other subjects were asked to sort the descriptions into piles based on similarity and then form an impression of the group. Subjects who had attended more closely to the information by sorting the cards on the basis of similarity did not display the happy–neutral mood difference. Using a different manipulation, Bodenhausen, Kramer, and Susser (1994, experiment 4) also varied how accountable subjects were for their judgments. Increasing accountability resulted in happy subjects processing information more carefully and making less stereotypic judgments.
The motivational demands perceivers carry into a situation clearly affect where they will allocate their attention and what cognitive strategies they will adopt. Thus, motiva- tion to be accurate is likely to lead to more meticulous consideration of specific individ- uating information about targets than is motivation for a quick judgment. The former should lead to greater affect infusion because of the longer time spent processing infor- mation in making the judgment (Forgas, 1995). A snap judgment, by contrast, is likely to be based more strongly on pre-existing bias. As Forgas (1995) has argued in his AIM model, processing strategies influence the amount of time spent making judgments and, therefore, the opportunity of affect to infuse on judgments by arousing affect-consistent cognitions. This leads us to our second variable: temporal demands.
(b) Temporal demands. The more time spent processing information, the greater is the opportunity for affect to infuse the judgment process (Forgas, 1995). On the other hand, under severe time constraint, judgments tend to be more heuristic and homogeneous. For example, Stroessner and Mackie (1992) varied how much time subjects had to look at descriptions of members of another group. When they had only three seconds between stimuli, they found that happy subjects perceived greater homogeneity in the outgroup than did neutral subjects. However, this difference was significantly reduced when time between stimulus presentations was increased to seven seconds. Their findings indicate that the relationship between mood and stereotyping may be affected by the time avail- able for processing information. With less time to process stimuli, happy subjects were less attentive to variability and, by implication, more reliant on their expectation of similarity within the outgroup.
(c) Target demands. Judgments of an outgroup or of specific members are made in a social context. Context is provided by the presence of others (e.g., bystanders, other out- group members), or, at minimum, by the expectations associated with the outgroup. In either case, evidence indicates that outgroup members who appear to be atypical or who engage in unexpected behavior elicit close inspection. As a result, their individuating
characteristics and behavior exercise greater impact on judgments than do simple group stereotypes (Bless et al., in press; Fiske & Neuberg, 1980).
In sum, to the extent perceivers are motivated to process information carefully and have sufficient time to do so, to the extent affect is not so strong as to distract them from attending to the actions of the target, and to the extent the target is atypical in word or deed, perceivers’ judgments will be based more strongly on individuating information present in the situation and less on stereotypes and prejudice about the outgroup. More- over, closer attention to the target will promote more affect infusion such that positive mood should lead to a more positive evaluation and negative mood to a more negative evaluation of the target.